This book investigates the characteristics of today's built environment: no longer simply a city but increasingly large conurbations made up of a number of development clusters, linked by transport routes. The diffusion of the once compact city into a city web, the 'meta city' is mirrored by changes in society from communities with strong social cohesion and interest in their towns and cities to individuals pursing their own goals, with global social links and little interest in their city...

Shanghai, like the other big cities along China’s coastline, has witnessed extraordinary growth in its economy and population with industrial development and rural-to-urban migration generating extensive urban expansion. Shanghai’s GDP growth rate has been over 10 per cent for more than 15 years. Its population in 2013 was estimated at 23.47 million, which is double its size in 1979. The urban area enlarged by four times from 644 to 2,860 km2 between 1977 and 2010. Such demanding growth an...

A former Africa editor for The Economist, Robert Guest addresses the troubled continent's thorniest problems: war, AIDS, and above all, poverty. Newly updated with a preface that considers political and economic developments of the past six years, The Shackled Continentis engrossing, highly readable, and as entertaining as it is tragic.Guest pulls the veil off the corruption and intrigue that cripple so many African nations, posing a provocative theory that Africa...

Urban transport systems worldwide are faced by a multitude of challenges. Among the most visible of these are the traffic gridlocks experienced on city roads and highways all over the world. The prescribed solution to transport problems in most cities has thus been to build more infrastructures for cars, with a limited number of cities improving public transport systems in a sustainable manner. However, a number of challenges faced by urban transport systems – such as greenhouse gas emissi...

Praise for the first edition:'This book should be of interest to anyone interested in sustainable development, and especially sustainability indicators. Bell and Morse easily succeed in exposing the fundamental paradoxes of these concepts and, more importantly, they offer us a way forward. Readers ... will find their practical recommendations for those attempting to do sustainability analysis in the field most welcome, which is also the book's greatest strength.'Local Enviro...

Winner of the ACSA/AIA Housing Design Education Award!There is an increased interest among architects, urban specialists and design professionals to contribute to solve "the housing problem" in developing countries. The Invisible Houses takes us on a journey through the slums and informal settlements of South Africa, India, Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Cuba, Haiti and many other countries of the Global South, revealing the challenges of, and opportunit...

The city is the home of prosperity. It is the place where human beings find satisfaction of basic needs and access to essential public goods. The city is also where ambitions, aspirations and other material and immaterial aspects of life are realized, providing contentment and happiness. It is a locus at which the prospects of prosperity and individual and collective well-being can be increased. However, when prosperity is restricted to some groups, when it is used to pursue specific inter...

Examining the current trends in regional economic development in Europe, Restructuring Industry and Territory explores ways in which the restructuring of industry and territorial development relate to each other, their emergent interdependency and role in economic development. The book argues that the structural and cultural features of regions play an important part in helping or hindering concerted policies for regional development. Using case studies from different industries i...

Based on cases and interviews in Britain, Europe and the United States, this book explains the recurrence of regional planning and of initiatives in regional governance, in a wide range of advanced industrial countries. Providing an analysis of the nature of regional planning and governance, the book traces the development of regional planning and the institutions associated with it. It also looks at the way that regions have been changing their form under pressure from economic and politi...

How do we include and represent all people in cities? As the world rapidly urbanizes, and climate change creates global winners and losers, understanding how to design cities that provide for all their citizens is of the utmost importance. Inclusive Urbanization attempts to not only provide meaningful, practical guidance to urban designers, managers, and local actors, but also create a definition of inclusion that incorporates strategies bigger than the welfare state, and tactics ...

Since the beginning of the 1980s, British trade unions have experienced a dramatic retreat, marked by rapidly falling membership and declining industrial power. The authors examine the regional dimensions of this retreat of organised labour, paying particular attention to: The resilience of the unions' historical heartland areas. The impact of economic restructuring on local union traditions. The shrinking landscape of industrial militancy. The geographical decentralization of the new indu...

Regional Innovation Strategiesoffers the first comprehensive analysis of the new wave of innovation-oriented regional policies. It draws conclusions from the European Regional Technology Plans and Regional Innovation Strategies, both in old industrialised areas and in regions where development is slow, and compares this with US and Canadian experiences.Anticipating the enlargement of the EU, Regional Innovation Strategies also assesses the growing interest in the sub...